“We believe in inclusive Church – church which does not discriminate, on any level, on grounds of economic power, gender, mental health, physical ability, race or sexuality. We believe in Church which welcomes and serves all people in the name of Jesus Christ; which is scripturally faithful; which seeks to proclaim the Gospel afresh for each generation; and which, in the power of the Holy Spirit, allows all people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Jesus Christ.”

St Nicholas Church is calling on the local community to help bring some light to the lives of some of the UK’s most vulnerable children this Christmas by supporting their Christingle event in aid of The Children’s Society.

The Christingle celebration will be held at St Nicholas on 11th December at 3:00pm. Everyone is welcome to join the festivities and all money raised will go towards helping the children the charity works with, including victims of sexual exploitation.

Families and communities are welcome to come and celebrate together at the festive fundraising event, which revolves around orange flavoured cakes decorated with red icing and sweets. These, as well as a candle, highlight different parts of the Christian story.

Christingle has been taking place for 47 years and, with around one million people attending each year, it plays

a huge role in supporting The Children’s Society’s vital work to help some of this country’s most vulnerable children. This year, the charity is aiming to raise £1.4 million and every penny will be crucial to its work.

Jill Lomas from St Nicholas Church said: “We are really excited to be putting on a Christingle event this year and hope to have lots of local people coming to see the lovely display of illuminated orange cakes and help us raise money for a very worthy cause.”

Matthew Reed, Chief Executive of The Children’s Society, said: “We are thankful for the massive difference that Christingle services make to vulnerable children, year after year.

“Every child deserves a childhood filled with joy and happiness. The support from everyone attending Christingle events up and down the country will help us to fight child sexual exploitation and allow us to support even more children who have been seriously affected by it.”

The Children’s Society is a national charity that runs local services, helping children and young people when they are at their most vulnerable, and have nowhere left to turn. We also campaign for changes to laws affecting children and young people, to stop the mistakes of the past being repeated in the future. Our supporters around the country fund our services and join our campaigns to show children and young people they are on their side.

It would take an act of almost wilful ignorance for any long-term UK resident to be unaware that the Church of England has some problems. Since the 1950s there’s been a gradual reduction in church going in England, and, since the 1970s, a strong sense that most people no longer see their default identity as ‘C of E’. There are, of course, many factors in these changes and I’m not going to outline them here. Rather, I think it’s important for us to acknowledge ‘the facts’.

As a Church of England parish church, St Nicks faces many challenges and opportunities, whether that’s in terms of fabric or in terms of the helping our congregation to grow and thrive. In many respects I am not over anxious about these matters, primarily because God is extraordinary gracious and good. That which is of God cannot be kept down in the long-term. However, it’s also clear to me that we are called into partnership with God to work for the Kingdom. We are people of The Way and we follow where Christ leads, but we only do that in participation. We are also the Body of Christ. If we are to be that in the world we have to get on actually live it.

As such, we have ‘re-booted’ our Mission and Stewardship Group. It includes people like the church wardens, the curate and me as well a number of other volunteers from both the PCC and the wider congregation. We are in the midst of developing a Mission Action Plan (MAP). If you haven’t heard of them, expect to become a mighty expert on them in coming months! I’ve no wish to sport with your intelligence, but for those of you who don’t know what a MAP is, it’s a way of reflecting on where we are as a congregation/parish and – by understanding our hopes, priorities and opportunities – planning our mission strategy. If that still sounds a little opaque, do not be alarmed! In essence, a MAP is there as a tool to help us think about how we can practically serve the wider community as well become a growing congregation.

The one thing a MAP is not is a magic wand. By attempting to follow through on the priorities we set we shall find that some things work and some things don’t. The MAP also shows us where we’re doing good and exciting things already. In having a plan written down we have a reference point. If a particular project isn’t going well, then we can revisit it and adjust.

Apologies if this all sounds very dry. In one respect it is. For those of us who are rather more instinctual in our faith and who delight in the wild wanderings of the Spirit, Mission Action Planning comes across as the invention of the managerial mind – safe, planned, and unimaginative.

However, MAP offers us a way to hold our mission to account. And it exists as a tool. In the coming months, I hope more and more people – as the MAP process develops – will take ‘ownership’ of our Plan. What I mean is, that each one of us (whether we see ourselves at the centre of the church’s life or at its edges) have an opportunity to shape our plan of action for coming months and years. I hope to have a session or a morning in which feedback can be worked into the Plan. I shall also preach on the matter at some point. (Oh, how you wait with bated breath for that one!)

‘Consultation’ isn’t about paying lip-service to congregational views, but a reminder of my earlier point about us being Christ in this little plot of Manchester. We are people God is calling to service, love and proclamation. The future of the Church of England and of St Nick’s is ultimately in God’s hands, but we are representatives of those hands in this world. We have so many gifts, so much hope and a whole panoply of joy here at St Nick’s.